Ephesians 4:13 - Exposition

Until we all come. This marks the duration of the office of the ministry. Some maintain that it implies that all these offices are to continue in the Church until the result specified is obtained (Catholic Apostolic or Irvingite Church): this is contradicted by Scripture and by experience, so far as apostles and prophets are concerned, for the gifts for these offices were not continued, and without the gifts the offices are impossible. The meaning is that, till the event specified, there is to be a provision in the Church of the offices that are needed, and the apostle, in using "until," probably had in view the last office in his list—pastors and teachers. To the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Both genitives are governed by unity; already there is one faith ( Ephesians 4:5 ), but we all, i.e . all who compose or are yet to compose the body of Christ, the totality of this body, have to be brought to this faith. As in Ephesians 4:5 "faith" is not equivalent to "creed," or truth believed, but the act of believing; so here the consummation which the ministers of the Church are given to bring about is a state in which faith in the Son of God shall characterize all, and that, not a blind faith, but a faith associated with knowledge. Usually faith and knowledge are opposed to each other; but here faith has more the meaning of trust than of mere belief—trust based on knowledge, trust in the Son of God based on knowledge of his Person, his work, and his relation to them that receive him. To bring all the elect to this faith is the object of the ministry; when they are all brought to it, the body of Christ will be complete, and the functions of the Christian ministry will cease. Unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The idea of organic completeness is more fully expressed by these two clauses; the consummation is the completeness of the whole body of Christ as such ; but that involves the maturity of each individual who is a constituent part of that body; and the measure or sign of maturity, both for the individual and for the whole, is the stature of the fullness of Christ (comp. Romans 8:29 , "Whom he did foreknow, them he also foredained to be conformed to the image of his Son "). The question has been put—Will this consummation be in this life or the next? The one seems to melt into the other; the idea of a complete Church and that of a new economy seem inseparable; as the coming of Christ will terminate the observance of the Lord's Supper, so it will terminate the ministries ordained by Christ for the completion of his Church.